Tremendous success for The Shape Shifter's British debut

IT IS indeed a humbling experience to bear witness to such brilliance
as that which was both on and off stage at the Hampstead Theatre
on Thursday night.

RL Nesvet's award-winning The Shape Shifter received its
British premiere to a full house in a rehearsed reading presented
by Cheeky Maggot Theatre Company.

Extremely well written, directed and performed, the event was
a huge success, and a credit to all involved.

The Shape Shifter is both thought-provoking and timeless.
Its themes are as relevant today as they were in the 19th Century.

Questions of social identity, individualism, gender and sexuality
are greatly significant in all the events that unfold.

Anna Tollput gave a stunning performance as the young teacher,
Alice Barbin. Having lived 18 years of her life as a woman, Barbin
was diagnosed, by Dr Gilbert Chesnet, played by Alastair Danson,
as a biological male.

The harrowing consequences of this revelation are highlighted
when Barbin again meets Chesnet years later.

She has left the convent in which she worked, left the woman
which she loved, became a 'man' and tells Chesnet she wants to
set out to sea and become a sailor.

Chesnet warns Barbin that to do so would be most undesirable
as she looks like a woman. Barbin then scoffs at Chesnet as, according
to him, she can be neither man nor woman, to him she has no place
in society.